'Here' and 'Now': an apparent asymmetry in the interpretation of physics concepts

Abstract

For many interpreters, STR (Special Theory of Relativity) modifies in a different way the concepts of space and time. Only the latter would be subject to a radical transformation, that assimilates it to space. Also the Einstenian first formulation of STR would present time as the very central argument of relativistic innovation. Nevertheless, this opinion does not agree with physical formalism, which gives the same role to both magnitudes. The analysis of Einstein’s original formulation of STR allows to point out the identity among conceptual modifications of space and time, and shows that differences are only methodological. The “definition of position”, although only implicitly used by Einstein, includes the same conventional elements as the definition of simultaneity. In this way it clearly appears that any attempt to vanish the objective meaning of time, becomes absolutely unjustified: STR destroys the absolute, but not the objective character of space and time. Divergent interpretations, that lead paradoxically to describe relativistic modifications as “spatialization” of time, are really due to the attribution to these concepts of a concrete meaning in the metaphysical structure of reality, incompatible with objective temporality and becoming.